28 May 2013

OSCAR WILDE AND THE CANDLELIGHT MURDERS.

August, 1889. Oscar Wilde, poet, playwright, wit and raconteur, chances on the mutilated corpse of a sixteen-year-old boy in a candlelit room in one of the back streets of Westminster. In fin-de-siecle London and Paris, with the help of fellow author Arthur Conan Doyle, Wilde sets out to unravel the mystery of Billy Wood ..... and the bizarre deaths that follow in its wake.

..... Outer back cover.

FIRST SENTENCE (Chapter 1: 31 August 1889): On an afternoon ablaze with sunshine, at the very end of August 1889, a man in his mid-thirties - tall, a little overweight and certainly overdressed - was admitted to a small house in Cowley Street, in the city of Westminster, close by the Houses of Parliament.MEMORABLE MOMENT (Page 296): ..... was an elderly gentleman who appeared to have wandered into the room from the pages of a book of eccentric fairytales. He wad Dore's painting of Rumplestiltskin with Tenniel's drawing of the White Knight in Through The Looking-Glass.MY THOUGHTS:In many ways but not all (I certainly worked out whodunit three quarters of the way through) a ripping yarn of a murder mystery with a romantic sub-plot.Extremely witty and full of delightfully quirky characters (but then I wouldn't have expected anything less from its author who, a writer, broadcaster and former Member of Parliament, is one of Britain's most sought after after-dinner speakers ) Oscar Wilde And the Candlelight Murders (the first in what I believe to be a series of six books) is so meticulously researched that at times it reads almost like a biography - the relationship between Wilde and his wife, Constance, I thought particularly illuminating, the period details vivid, the nods to the literature, to the culture, of the time very clever and the ideas surrounding homosexuality before there even was such a word (at one point in the story the term 'musical' is used) fascinating.Not a book that will to be to everyone's taste of that I'm certain, even now I'm not totally convinced that instead of starring a fictionalised Oscar Wilde the novel wouldn't have been just as good a read with a Wilde-type character who possessed a similar amount of wit and charisma.KEEP IT OR NOT?: Enjoyable to read once though alas not one for the shelves.

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16 comments:

I always feel a little ripped off by writers who "steal" characters for their books. I'm no expert on Oscar Wilde but I'm willing to bet that you are correct that the book would have been as good with an unknown name for the protagonist. But then, maybe using the name will grab the attention of someone looking to buy an interesting read - after all - the cover alone gives much insight into the kind of character found inside.

Jean and yourself, more or less echo my own thoughts exactly and I have voiced them very vociferously on more than one occasion.

I hate it when an author makes money off the back of a fellow authors characters, especially when the original author and characters are already given 'classic' status and are generally deceased, making it impossible for any complaint to be upheld.

I am not that keen on Gyles Brandreth the person and have never read any of his books, so this is certainly not one for my reading list, even if he had used an authentic character of his own.

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